Korean Job Discussion Forums

ratslash · Joined: 08 May 2003

the old to have or not to have a dgree argument.

someone might have already have written this but i am boloxed if i am going to wade through 8 pages to find out...

BUT...

how does having a degree make you a good teacher? if someone goes to the dodgy guy in itaewon and gets one printed and he/she is the best teacher in the world then surely that is a good thing? he or she adores teaching, the kids love the teacher and the teacher does a smashingly great job. is that a bad thing?

and then on the other side of the coin you get the kid with the building degree (no offence meant to builders - JUST AN EXAMPLE!) who comes here for the money and doesn't care about teaching, the school or the students.

given the above examples, who would YOU most like to hire?!?!?

TECO · Joined: 20 Jan 2003

Another good post.

LOL!!

Comes down to 'personality' not Ph.D or M.A. or CELTA.

Personality wins over any certificate or degree any day.

TheUrbanMyth · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Location: Retired

Kwangjuchicken · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:29 pm Post subject:

Although awhile back I posted on this thread, I just realized that I have never answered the question: What do you think of fake degrees?

Well, it might be the medications talking, I have had three oral sugery procedures done in the past 5 days, but, after having gone to college for 13 Shocked

years and received 1 real BA 2 Real MA's and 1 real PhD, I think those with fake degrees should be sent to visit Twisted Evil

for quite some time. Laughing

The Chicken has spoken.

And now the chicken is going back to his room for more drugs.

Love and pecks Embarassed

Me.

.

Zed · Joined: 20 Jan 2003 Location: Shakedown Street

Those without degrees are liable to accept jobs for less. The more of them that there are, whether good teachers or not, the more difficult it is going to be for me to make a decent wage. And while I have paid money to get my 'degree qualification', have spent money on a CELTA and am spending money on a linguistics MA, I don't want them coming to a place that has decent wages partly because of this degree policy and undercutting me. Go to someplace where the degree isn't required.

Ben Glickman · Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Location: Vancouver, B.C. Canada

We receive hundreds of applications a week, and a few of those are inevitably from individuals with unaccredited degrees. Individuals that are applying to teach in Korea with unaccredited degrees are putting themselves at risk, as well as undermining the professionalism of the whole industry. Furthermore, individuals that have not completed a four year degree are often ill-equipt to deal with the challenges and rigors of life abroad.
If there are any school directors/owners/recruiters reading this post, here are two excellent sites that both explain what the parameters of unaccredited degrees are, and common 'degree mills' to look out for:

http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.html
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Non-accreditedSchools_78090_7.pdf

From our experience, some of the most popular 'degree mill' degrees are from the following:

St. Regis University
Buxton University
Bridgewater University
Rochville University

None of these institutions offer degrees recognized as valid by any accrediting institution.

Captain Corea · Joined: 28 Feb 2005 Location: Seoul

some waygug-in · Joined: 25 Jan 2003

Why is anyone still worrying about this?

People with fake degrees can't get jobs in Korea.......................

at least not legal jobs. End of story.

laogaiguk · Joined: 06 Dec 2005 Location: somewhere in Korea

TheUrbanMyth · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Location: Retired

chronicpride · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Bulsajo · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

ttompatz · Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Location: Kwangju, South Korea

Ben Glickman · Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Location: Vancouver, B.C. Canada

If you check out the Peace Corps website one of the first questions asked is about post-secondary education. I doubt they would ask this unless they felt this was strongly predictive of applicant's future job performance.
It may be a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, but looking at the teachers we have placed in China- a greater percentage of teachers we have placed in China with four year degrees have completed contracts and experienced less problems than teachers that we have placed in China that do not have four year degrees- even within the direct comparison group of teachers with and without degrees placed at the same institutes.
That being said, I am not saying that teachers without degrees cannot be good teachers, I am saying based on our internal statistics, teachers with degrees have fared better than those that don't have degrees. You can draw your own conclusions- there is of course room for excpetions to the norm.
However, as has been discussed before, whether individuals without degrees can be good teachers in Korea is a moot point- since by teaching with unaccredited degrees individuals put themselves, their schools and any third party representing at risk. I don't have the link handy - but there was an article in the Globe and Mail a few months ago regarding 50 Canadian teachers who were detained and deported from South Korea- all of whom were teaching illegally in some capacity- some of whom had fake degrees.